EVOLUTION OF GSM

When the acronym GSM was used for the first time in 1982, it stood for Groupe Spciale Mobile, a committee under the umbrella of Confrence (CEPT), Europenne the des Postes et Tlcommunications organization. European standardization

The task of GSM was to define a new standard for mobile communications in the 900 MHz range.. In the course of time, CEPT evolved into a new organization, the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI). That, however,

did not change the task of GSM. The goal of GSM was to replace the purely national, already overloaded, and thus expensive technologies of the member countries with an international standard. In 1991, the first GSM systems were ready to be brought into so-called friendly-user operation. The meaning of the acronym GSM was changed that same year to stand for Global System for Mobile Communications. The year 1991 also saw the definition of the first derivative of GSM, the Digital Cellular System 1800 (DCS 1800), which more or less translates the GSM system into the 1800 MHz frequency range. In the United States, DCS 1800 was adapted to the 1900 MHz band (Personal Communication System 1900, or PCS 1900). The next phase, GSM Phase 2, will provide even more end-user features than phase 1 of GSM did. In 1991, only insiders believed such a success would be possible because mobile communications could not be considered a mass market in most parts of Europe.

Figure: GSM customers worldwide at the end of each year

THE GSM BANDS

SERVICES
TELESERVICES (TS) Telephony, emergency calls, voice messaging BEARER SERVICES (BS) SMS and cell broadcast, 9.6kbit/s SUPPLEMENTARY SERVICES (SS) Advice of charge Barring outgoing call, International calls, roaming calls Call forwarding under various conditions Call hold Call waiting Call transfer to a third party Completion of calls to busy subscribers notify the caller when the callee is free Closed user group ---- only among themselves Caller ID and restrictions Free phone service (just like 800 numbers) Malicious call identification Three-party conference calls

GSM ARCHITECTURE

THE FOUR BLOCKS

MOBILE STATION SUBSYSTEM (MSS) Mobile Termination (MT) and SIM card (SIM) BASE STATION SUBSYSTEM (BSS) BSC and BTS NETWORK AND SWITCHING SUBSYSTEM (NSS) MSC, HLR, VLR, EIR and AuC OPERATION AND SUPPORT SUBSYSTEM (OSS) OMC and NMC

These blocks are defined as below:

MSS (MOBILE TERMINATION MT)

MOBILE TERMINATION (MT) INCLUDES

Terminal Equipment (TE) palm, fax or mobile phone Terminal Adapter (TA) GSMs interface to TE
TE IDENTITIES AND CLASSMARK

(The followings need be specified for the GSM network) International Mobile Equipment ID (IMEI) --- IEEE 48 bit hardware address Revision level ---- GSM version implemented Encryption capability Frequency capability --- dual-band, tri-band Short message capability RF power capability

EQUIPMENT CLASS AND POWER LEVEL CLASS

All MSS belong to class 1 commercial telecom equipment. (Class 2 are restricted equipments) (subclass 9) :Other radio equipment, which transmits only under the control of a network The power classes are specified below. Only I slot per frame is active. Vehicle mounted (class 2), portables (class 4)

MSS -- SUBSCRIBER IDENTITY MODULE (SIM)

SUBSCRIBER AND EQUIPMENT IDS ARE INDEPENDENT elements. A major reason for the success of GSM over that of DAMPS. INTERNATIONAL MOBILE SUBSCRIBER ID(IMSI) 15 digit = 3 for country code, 3 for mobile network code and 9 for mobile ID number.

TEMPORARY MOBILE SUBSCRIBER ID(TMSI)

 per-call basis ID for security reason to avoid sending IMSI over the air MOBILE STATION ISDN NUMBER (MS-ISDN) This is a telephone number of the mobile subscriber. It is comprised of a country code, a network code and a subscriber number.

MOBILE STATION ROAMING NUMBER Temporary ID for roamers INTERNATIONAL MOBILE EQUIPMENT ID (IMEI) (IMEI, IMSI) pair ensures only authorized users are granted access to the system. LOCATION AREA IDENTITY (LAI) Identifies the particular group of cells the MT has most recently visited

SUBSCRIBER AUTHENTICATION KEY (KI) A secret assigned by the operating company to a subscriber

BASE STATION SUBSYSTEM

Consists of

BASE TRANSCEIVER STATION (BTS) radio equipments responsible for radio coverage

BASE STATION CONTROLLER Controls a few BTS Manage radio resource management, signaling transmission, power control, handover control, frequency hopping control etc.

TRANSCODER/RATE ADAPTER UNIT (OPTIONAL) A device placed between GSM elements (BTS, BSC and MSC) to conserve bandwidth resources. Combines four 13 kbps speech channels to one 64 kbps data stream. Thirty 64 kbps channels can then be multiplexed to a E1 channel. Located at BTS, BSC (more often) or MSC

MOBILE SERVICES SWITCHING CENTER:-

. Networ A large number of BSCs are connected to the MSC via the A-interface. The MSC is very similar to a regular digital telephone exchange and is accessed by external networks exactly the same way. The major tasks of an MSC are the

10

routing of incoming and outgoing calls and the assignment of user channels on the A-interface .

11